A method of creating high quality surfaces for roads, parking lots and other situations is through the use of mixed paving materials such as bituminous slurry. The manufacture of bituminous slurry, as with virtually all paving materials, requires the mixture of several ingredients. The quality of the bituminous slurry or other paving material is directly dependent on the relative amounts of these ingredients.
Present paving systems rely on calibration techniques to roughly gauge the amounts of the various constituent parts of the paving material mixture. These calibration techniques do not provide feedback as to the quality, consistency or formula of the paving material being produced as it is produced.
Other present systems allow for an operator of the system to adjust the consistency of the paving material mixture at the job site based on visual inspection of the paving material as it is mixed. These systems require highly skilled operators to be able to judge the appropriate formula of the mixture and make the necessary adjustments. Further, the systems require constant monitoring and, once again, wide variances in the quality of the paving material may result.
One of the most important considerations in the operation of a paving system is the application rate of material. Without completing an entire batch of paving material, present systems do not have any way of measuring this application rate which is commonly defined as the weight of dry material used per unit area covered. Present systems weigh the amount of material at the beginning of the job and then reweigh the system after a batch of material had been spread to determine the amount of material applied. These systems do not give useful feedback during the operation of the systems to allow for any fine adjustment to the rate of application during the application of a batch of material. Once again, a skilled operator is required to judge the appropriate rate of application by visually inspecting the application process. The existing methods give no information as to the application rates during the operation of the systems. Accordingly, a need has arisen for a paving system which allows for the monitoring of the consistency and the application rate of the paving material during the actual application of the materials. A further need has arisen for a system which incorporates the constant monitoring of the amount of materials being used without the need for the use of an entire batch of materials to gain this information. A further need therefore has arisen for a continuously monitored system such that materials may be added to the system to allow for continuous operation.